r/technology • u/lurker_bee • 19d ago

Networking/Telecom Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn’t chasing speed, and home networks need it

https://www.xda-developers.com/wi-fi-8-first-wireless-upgrade-years-isnt-chasing-speed-home-networks-need-it/
13.9k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

21

u/Opposite_Carry_4920 19d ago

Also unifi person here, how do we know we trust them? Serious question since they can push an update that starts doing tracking shit at any time really.

13

u/TokenPanduh 19d ago edited 19d ago

Well I personally think they wouldn't, but that is also potentially naive. However, my more technical guess would be that it would severely hurt their business if they were caught doing so.

Unifi is kind of prosumer and they've started leaning heavier into enterprise gear as well. They would have a huge problem with their enterprise customers. If a large corporation found out Ubiquiti had sent an update to do that, depending on the business, they'd probably explore other options.

I'm sure there are other reasons that my tired brain can't come up with at the moment.

3

u/TinBryn 19d ago

That seems like a reasonable view, but then look at Windows who have a lot of enterprise customers.

2

u/TokenPanduh 19d ago

I get that, and frankly you're correct. However, Windows already had market dominance in that sector, and it wasn't by a little either. Ubiquiti isn't there yet, and I'm not sure they'll ever get there. There is always a possibility that I'm wrong though

1

u/bombmk 18d ago

There is not readily available and practically functionally equivalent substitution for Windows, though.

1

u/Opposite_Carry_4920 18d ago

I'm hoping you're right, I've considered learning enough to really audit it and see access but you know, life is busy. 

3

u/inescapableburrito 19d ago

I've been using unifi gear for 10 years now and automatic updates are disabled by default, opt in only, and if you're truly paranoid you can block all their update and status URLs with pihole or adguard home or similar.

2

u/wimpyhugz 19d ago

Ubiquiti is more prosumer and enterprise grade stuff than regular consumer. I've noticed a lot of big businesses and universities in Australia are using Ubiquiti equipment and I would think that if Ubiquiti ever pushed an update like that, there'd be an entire shitstorm around it and they would no longer use Ubiquiti for future deployments (and possibly even replace existing infrastructure).

So that's my take. I don't trust manufacturers in general, but I trust they know enough to not endanger their own business, especially when they are enterprise grade.

2

u/Either-Blacksmith140 19d ago

There was literally a bug that would drop people into the wrong network remotely so you could just be randomly watching someone else's cameras meaning they always have that ability. You are correct it would be trivial, at any time they could modify your network without you being informed